1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the generation of summary information for electronic documents for receipt and processing by mobile communication devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic documents are produced using various computer programs, such as word processors, spreadsheet programs, financial software, and presentation software. In addition to text, documents can contain “rich” content such as font information, embedded images, illustrations, bookmarks and hyperlinks. These electronic documents can be organized into groups of structural elements such as pages, worksheets or slides. When a user of a mobile communication device wishes to access an electronic document which resides on a remote computer and view the document on the mobile communication device, the entire electronic document is typically transmitted over a potentially bandwidth-constrained wireless network to the mobile communication device. For example, if a user wishes to view only the one-page terms and conditions section at the beginning of a 400-page document, the entire document is typically transmitted to the mobile communication device, of which the user only views one page on the mobile communication device.
The electronic document is viewed using the mobile communication device's user interface, which typically differs from the user interface used to create and view the document on a PC. While the user interface on a PC used to create an electronic document may include a large color display and a pointing device such as a mouse, the mobile device may have a small, non-color screen, and may not have a mouse. In addition, the mobile device typically has greater processing power and memory limitations than a PC used to view the electronic document, which may be very large in size.